Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

For this week’s confusing card of the week article, we’re going to take a look at Shocking Grasp: Basic Action Card from the Faerûn Under Siege Starter set.

Ruling – Ability

Shocking Grasp is a Basic Action. If a card ability would affect an Action Die, Shocking Grasp could be chosen for the effect. One such example is Constantine: Antihero.

When you use Shocking Grasp, it deals one damage to a target character die. If the damage that Shocking Grasp does would KO that character, you can place the Shocking Grasp die in your Prep Area instead of Out of Play. If the character is not KO’d by the damage from Shocking Grasp, you must place the Shocking Grasp die Out of Play.

Shocking Grasp can target one of your opponent’s character dice or one of your own character dice. Players will sometimes target one of their own Sidekick dice or a character that has a When Fielded ability and KO that character with their own Shocking Grasp. This will enable them to reroll their character die next turn, as well as the Shocking Grasp die.

You can use other means to deal damage to a character with a defense larger than one, and then use the Shocking Grasp die to deal the final point of damage, allowing you to put Shocking Grasp into your Prep Area. Shocking Grasp must do the damage that KO’s the character in order for you to place the Shocking Grasp die in your Prep Area.

If you use Shocking Grasp and the damage KO’s a character, you are not required to put the Shocking Grasp die in your Prep Area. Putting the Shocking Grasp die in your Prep Area after KO’ing a character with it is optional because it says that you ‘may’ put this die in your Prep Area.

Miscellaneous Card Information

~ Shocking Grasp is a Basic Action Card with no energy type.
~ It does not have any affiliations, but it does have the Neutral type symbol.
~ It has a max dice of three.
~ This card is a Common and is #34 of 142.

Examples

These examples are for information purposes only, to show what would happen in certain scenarios. I am not suggesting that these examples are the best outcomes for each scenario and each example only features relevant parts of the turn, not the entire turn.

Example One:
Using Shocking Grasp during your Main Step.

~ I have a Shocking Grasp die in my Reserve Pool. My opponent has a Sidekick in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) I use my Shocking Grasp die to deal one damage to my opponent’s Sidekick. This KO’s the Sidekick, which allows me to place the Shocking Grasp die in my Prep Area instead of sending it Out of Play.

Example Two:
Using Shocking Grasp during your Attack Step.

~ I have a Shocking Grasp die in my Reserve Pool and a Sidekick in my Field Zone. My opponent has a Sidekick in the Field Zone.
~ (Attack Step – Assign Attackers) I assign my Sidekick as an attacker, moving it into the Attack Zone.
~ (Attack Step – Assign Blockers) My opponent assigns their Sidekick to block mine by moving their die into the Attack Zone and placing it in front of my Sidekick die (to show that it’s blocking that die).
~ (Attack Step – Actions and Globals) I use my Shocking Grasp die to deal one damage to my opponent’s Sidekick. This KO’s the Sidekick, which allows me to place the Shocking Grasp die in my Prep Area instead of sending it Out of Play. My opponent declines to use any Globals.
~ (Attack Step – Assign and Resolve Damage) My Sidekick was blocked by my opponent’s Sidekick. Even though I KO’d that Sidekick, my Sidekick will not deal any damage to my opponent.
~ (Clean Up) My Sidekick returns to the Field Zone because it was blocked and not KO’d. All dice Out of Play are moved into the Used Pile. All effects end unless otherwise stated.

Example Three:
Using Shocking Grasp on one of your own characters.

~ I have a Shocking Grasp die in my Reserve Pool and a Sidekick in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) I use my Shocking Grasp die to deal one damage to my Sidekick. This KO’s the Sidekick (sending it to the Prep Area), which allows me to place the Shocking Grasp die in my Prep Area instead of sending it Out of Play.

Example Four:
Using Shocking Grasp on a character with more than one defense.

~ I have a Shocking Grasp die and one Bolt energy in my Reserve Pool. I also have a level two Storm die in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) I spend one Bolt energy (moving it Out of Play) to use the Global on Magic Missile, dealing one damage to my Storm’s two defense. This means she can only take one more damage this turn before she’s KO’d.
~ (Main Step) I use my Shocking Grasp die to deal one damage to Storm. This KO’s Storm (sending her to the Prep Area), which allows me to place the Shocking Grasp die in my Prep Area instead of sending it Out of Play.

Official Sources

Ratings

You can find a guide to my ratings, here.
These are personal opinion of the card being showcased and not an official reflection of current major meta.

Golden Age Rating

Shocking Grasp definitely has its uses, but it’s a card that requires a specific team – especially in Golden Age. You could just throw this card on any team, but you likely aren’t going to get the full benefit unless the team has an actual use for it. A good character with a When Fielded ability and a low defense is a good reason to look at Shocking Grasp. It not only helps you churn your character, but it also gives you a bit a churn/ramp by letting you prep the action die if you KO its target. Sometimes it’s better to use an action die than bring a nasty Global. I can easily give this card a rogue rating for Golden Age. It’s a great card in the hands of the right pilot.

Shocking Grasp: Basic Action Card gets a rating of three out of five stars.

Modern Age Rating

I haven’t seen a bunch of teams that would find this card as an easy plug-and-play in Modern Age. I think this is a very useful card for the same reasons that it’s useful in Golden Age. If Bat-Family finds a meta spot in Modern Age, I could see this card potentially finding its way onto a few variants of that team, but probably not with a majority of them. It can be a good way to KO a level one Alfred, but Unstable Canister provides clearer and more effective option. Someone that’s staying away from Globals would be more likely to use this card. Again – great card, but requires the right pilot, which is why it earns another rogue rating.

Shocking Grasp: Basic Action Card gets a rating of three out of five stars.

Prime Rating

At the time of writing, this card was not legal for play in the Prime format.

Casual Play Rating

Shocking Grasp has text that’s very easy to understand for most beginners. I’ve seen several players asking about advanced tactics and strategy with this card so that’s one reason why I thought I would feature it. I’ve also noticed that the text on this card can be slightly confusing for those that do not speak and/or read English very well, which was another reason I chose to feature this card for this week’s article. However, the language barrier issue is not part of my consideration for my casual rating system. I wanted to put this article out there to help my friends in other countries to better understand this card. I know it’s easier for many of my friends to translate my articles than it is to translate card text. I’m here for all players across the world. I hope this article helps shed some light on this card for anyone out there that may be having trouble with it. I also hope it helps newer players with some uses for it that they may not have noticed before. I can easily recommend this card for players of all skill levels.

Shocking Grasp: Basic Action Card gets a rating of five out of five stars.

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